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Oral Answer by Mr Hawazi Daipi, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Manpower and Education, to Parliamentary Question on Psychosocial Risks

Notice Paper No. 404 Of 2012 for the Sitting on 14 November 2012
Question No. 861 For Oral Answer

MP: Ms Faizah Jamal

Question: 

To ask the Acting Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Council's specific guidelines to the healthcare industry can specifically include sexual harassment and sexual abuse; and (b) whether there are plans for the WSH Council's guidelines to apply to all industries beyond only the healthcare industry which it now currently covers and when this extension will take place.

Answer:

  1. Developing a progressive and pervasive Workplace Safety and Health (or WSH) Culture in the workforce is critical to our efforts to improve WSH standards in Singapore. WSH Council’s CultureSAFE programme is designed to help businesses in this endeavour. The programme measures and benchmarks an organisation’s WSH culture. It also identifies gaps and develops programmes to help the organisation better manage all work-related risks, including psychosocial risks. As the programme has just been launched, WSH Council will be gathering feedback and when appropriate, review and improve the programme.
  2. Ms Faizah suggested specifically addressing sexual harassment and sexual abuse in the WSH Council’s Guidelines for the healthcare industry. These guidelines already touch on violence and workplace harassment. They were added following industry feedback that workers in healthcare were more susceptible to psychosocial risks. These guidelines can also apply to risks associated with sexual harassment.
  3. As for incorporating psychosocial risk recommendations into additional WSH guidelines, MOM will work with WSH Council to consult relevant stakeholders. It is important that such guidelines are meaningful to the associated industries.